GT take the fewest risks among IPL teams when they bat. They can afford to do so because their bowlers regularly give them low scores to chase. For the second match in a row, they had their Test bowlers Mohammed Siraj and Kagiso Rabada bowl like they would in a Test match, running through the powerplay with three overs each.

Siraj was excellent with three overs for 15 runs, but the wickets went to Rabada, who was direct with his attack, bowling full, straight and fast. He ripped out Danish Malewar, Quinton de Kock and Suryakumar Yadav in this spell, the latter two with balls timed at 150 and 152kmph.

Led by Rashid Khan, GT kept the batters honest in the middle overs. Encouraged by the turn on offer for Rashid, Shubman Gill went to Washington Sundar in the 11th over. Tilak, still struggling for fluency, turned the strike over to Dhir, who took down Washington like a medium-pacer. And Washington did bowl like a medium-pacer, firing the ball at upwards of 100kmph and getting step-hit for six and four.

However, Prasidh Krishna soon got the wicket of Dhir with yet another short ball, making it 23 IPL wickets for him with short or short-of-a-length balls since the start of the 2025 season. That’s nine more than anyone. He also has the third-best economy rate off those lengths (minimum 30 balls bowled).

Which is what makes what followed all the more inexplicable. When he started the 15th over, Prasidh had the field set for the short ball, but proceeded to bowl one full ball after another. One can be a bluff, two can be errors, but four in a row is hard to explain. Tilak was ruthless, taking 16 off these balls.

Rabada came back to bring some order to proceedings, ending with figures of 4 for 33. Rashid, though, didn’t enjoy a similar end. He overpitched and underpitched the first two balls of the 17th over, and Tilak was now in an irresistible flow, hitting him for four and six.

The biggest over was the 18th, when Tilak outdid Ashok Sharma, who actually followed his plans. The first ball was a wide slower bouncer with the bigger boundary on the off side, but he still upper-cut it for a six. The second ball was hard length outside off, but he still managed to ramp it just over short fine. Now the young fast bowler begun to falter, and Varma demolished the rest of the over for 4, 4 and 6.

Siraj bowled a good 19th, getting the wicket of Hardik Pandya and ending up with figures of 4-0-25-1, but Prasidh again started the 20th over with a full ball. When he eventually went short, Tilak pulled him for a six, but only just cleared the sweeper. A high full-toss flew over long leg for a huge six, and the last ball was pulled away for four to bring up the hundred.

The last time Bumrah took a wicket in the IPL was in the Eliminator last year, incidentally against GT. He had gone six IPL matches without a wicket since then without bowling badly at all. He took the brand-new ball for the first time this season, and had a wicket first up with an unremarkable full ball, which B Sai Sudharsan sliced to cover point.

That MI’s luck was turning was evident in how Pandya got Jos Buttler lbw on umpire’s call with the ball projected to just clip the top of leg stump. Gill then played a nothing pull, neither rolling his wrists over nor trying to hit a six, to make it the first time in 21 matches that GT had lost all of their big three in the powerplay.

The powerplays cancelled each other out with GT scoring 45 for 3 to MI’s 46 for 3. Any hopes of a similar fightback to MI were dashed when Mitchell Santner took out Washington and Glenn Phillips in the same over, Washington to an excellent boundary catch by Dhir.

Ashwani Kumar was then at the receiving end of pressure-induced gifts on three occasions as GT continued to slide. Mystery spinner AM Ghazanfar wrapped up the tail with the wickets of Siraj and Rabada in the same over, making it the first time that an MI batter had outscored the entire opposition.

Brief scores:
Mumbai Indians 199 for 5 in 20 overs (Quinton de Kock 13, Tilak Varma  101*, Naman Dhir 45, Suryakumar Yadav 15, Hardik Pandya 15; Mohammed Siraj 1-25, Kagiso Rabada 3-33, Prasidh Krishna 1-54) beat Gujarat Titans 100 in 15.5 overs  (Shubman Gill 14, Washington Sundar 26, M Sharukh Khan 17, Kagiso Rabada 12; Jasprit Bumrah 1-15, Hardik Pandya 1-18, Ashwani Kumar  4-24, Mitchell Santner 2-16, AM Ghazanfar 2-17)  by 99 runs

[Cricinfo]